Dave Dombrowski In Charge of Red Sox Should Lead to an Active Winter in Boston

When only one team can win it all every season, measuring success in sports can often be a nebulous process — or one held entirely in the eye of the beholder. Tuesday night, the Red Sox reorganized their front office, hiring Dave Dombrowski as President of Baseball Operations. In turn, GM Ben Cherington decided he would leave the team rather than work under the former Tigers string-puller. Dombrowski told USA Today he’ll hire a new general manager, possibly Frank Wren.

From 2011-2014 the Tigers, under Dombrowski’s watch, won four straight American League Central titles and made three straight ALCS appearances. Detroit will likely miss out on the playoffs in 2015.

Over the same period under Cherington’s watch, Boston finished last in the AL East twice, third once, and won it once. The big difference is in 2013, the Red Sox won their third World Series this century, beating Dombrowski’s Tigers in the ALCS, no less. Boston looks like it will finish last again in 2015.

I’ll note at this point I’m a Tigers fan and Dombrowski’s work turning around the once-moribund franchise is commendable, despite coming up short on winning 86-year-old Mike Ilitch a ring. His reputation around baseball is sterling. I do find it interesting that the Dombrowski news will likely be hailed in Boston, while Cherington will probably be forgotten even though he did win a Series, albeit sandwiched around some bad seasons.

The easiest way to look at this shift for Boston is that Dombrowski is being set up to play the role of a cleaner, i.e. trying to turn around Cherington’s mess at the Major League Level. Boston’s 2014-15 offseason is mostly a disaster with free agent signings Hanley Ramirez (who didn’t have a position when Boston decided to sign him) and Pablo Sandoval underwhelming, while the trade for Rick Porcello (and $80+ million extension before throwing one pitch in Red Sox uniform) looks regrettable. Filling out the Boston rotation with theoretical innings eaters like of Joe Kelly, Wade Miley and Justin Masterson didn’t work once it left Cherington’s analytics department.

Dombrowski’s reputation is that of a wheeler and dealer, less so on baseball’s burgeoning devotion to statistical analysis. During his 14 years in Detroit, he made no less than 30 “major” trades, involving everyone from Jeff Weaver to Ugeth Urbina to Miguel Cabrera to Prince Fielder to David Price, twice. It stands to reason that he’ll try to move either Ramirez or Sandoval in the offseason. Boston fans best hope they got the Dombrowski who acquired players like Max Scherzer and Carlos Guillen in deals, not the guy who traded for Alfredo Simon and Shane Greene before the start of 2015.

His record in the draft is spotty, although he did select Justin Verlander, Curtis Granderson and Porcello. Wasting a first-round pick in 2009 on reliever Ryan Perry, who hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2012 isn’t a move to trumpet on the resume. He leaves the Tigers’ farm system among the worst in the game — due to all the win-now trading — but moving Price, Joakim Soria and Yoenis Cespedes last month did put the Tigers in much better position for 2016 than had he kept trying to go for it, as Ilitch wanted.

The more interesting question going forward is how much Dombrowski will dip into the Boston farm system to acquire pitching, or if he’ll just be happy to write checks for John Henry and Tom Werner. This year’s free agent crop includes Price, Johnny Cueto, Scott Kazmir, Mike Leake and Jordan Zimmermann. Clay Buchholz could be a free agent, too, if the Sox don’t pick up his option. At 22 years old, Eduardo Rodriguez — acquired by Cherington for Andrew Miller last season — has been excellent, but Boston basically needs to start over if it wants to improve on a staff 4.63 ERA that is last in the American League.

As hit-or-miss as his free agent track record was — remember Boston quickly unloading Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to the Dodgers — Cherington did stock the Red Sox farm system. Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Rusney Castillo are all 27 or younger and appear to be an outfield the team can go into 2016 and beyond fielding at Fenway. Xander Bogaerts is 23 and catcher Blake Swihart is 22. Highly-regarded minor league second baseman Yoan Moncada is 20.

On the flip side, without any ties to Boston, will Dombrowski be less influenced by sentiment when it comes to veterans like David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia going forward?

Whatever happens, it will be fascinating. Boston is only committed to $92 million for 2016 and Dombrowski is no stranger to working with big payrolls. He also won’t have the presence of an aging, win-now at all costs owner looming over his shoulder, then again the never-satisfied Red Sox Nation probably offsets that.

One irony is that in 2015, Detroit is 25th in bullpen ERA, a few points lower than Boston at 26th. If there was a great failing for Dombrowski in Detroit, it was building a bullpen that could get outs in October. Boston closer Koji Uehara is 40 and out for the season with a broken wrist. Something to at least consider.

When he inherited the Tigers in 2002 from Randy Smith, Dombrowski had a team with the likes of Shane Halter, Bobby Higginson and Mike Maroth. Although the Tigers lost 119 games in 2003, by 2006 they were in the World Series.

The situation isn’t nearly as dire in Boston right now, but there are a lot more moving parts to consider which might not make a straight rebuild as simple as it sounds. Expect a busy winter at Fenway.

[Photo via USA Today Sports Images]